We have been talking about habit change for the past few weeks in groups. This week we are going to balance that out with a healthy dose of self acceptance which, paradoxically can be a great catalyst for change and growth. This is a cornerstone of dialectical behavior therapy.

An important developmental task of adolescence is moving beyond dichotomous thinking that something is "all good" or "all bad". Getting stuck in inflexible thinking around habit change makes it difficult to make the incremental changes that are most effective.

According to Deborah Barrett, "The more we fight against it, the more likely we are to experience negative emotions, such as anger, hopelessness, and despair, and the harder it becomes to identify changes that can help. Like those Chinese finger-trap toys, the more forcefully we tug to release our index fingers, the more tightly ensnared they become. Calming down and taking stock of the situation opens the means to escape."

So in that spirit, this week we will be picking a habit that we are going to send some loving acceptance toward recognizing that our quirks and idiosyncrasies make us who we are for better and worse.